IS News Blog

Journal Citation Reports are an immensely useful tool and can help with identifying:

- journals with the greatest total cites and the highest impact in your field

- journals relevant to your research and those in which it would be desirable to publish

 

Each edition of Journal Citations Report is published annually in the Autumn following the year of coverage – and the latest 2007 edition has recently become available.

 

There are two different editions:  the Science Edition covering more than 5,900 science journals, and the Social Sciences Edition, covering more than 1,700 social sciences journals.

 

As usual the latest edition includes:

 

• Journal Impact Factors: the frequency with which the “average article” in a journal has been cited in a particular year. Helps evaluate a journal’s relative importance in a given field
• Total Cites: tells you which journals are most frequently cited. Journals are ranked by the number of times they are cited in a given year; gives an indication of assessment of journals by scholars who have responded to the items published

 

There are plans to enhance Journal Citation Reports and during February new metrics will be added:

 

• Five-Year Impact Factor
• ‘Rank in Category’ tables
• Box Plots
• Journal Self Citations

 

 

To access the Journal Citation Reports, logon to the University Portal, and select Journal Citation Reports from the “A-Z list of online resources”, then from the Web of Knowledge gateway choose the “Select a Database” tab. 

 

 

Clare Allan

Subject Librarian

To celebrate this anniversary there is a small display about Darwin, and several related books, in the display case at the entrance to the Stirling Campus Library.

 

Through a combination of meticulous observation and innovative thinking, Darwin came up with an explanation for the incredible variety of living things: that evolution was driven by natural selection.  At the same time he revolutionised the way humans think about ourselves and our place amongst the species we share the planet with.

 

If you can’t make it into the Library to see the display, you can find further information about the anniversary at:

 

• http://www.darwin200.org
• http://www.darwin2009.cam.ac.uk
• http://www.darwinday.org
• http://www.darwinbicentennial.org

 

Closer to home our own School of Biological and Environmental Sciences is hosting a special series of short talks to celebrate this important birthday: Thursday February 12th, at 1.00 pm in room 4U5, Cottrell Building.

 

For more Darwin related resources see:

 

• The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online: http://darwin-online.org.uk
• Darwin Correspondence Project: http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk
• Scientific American, Special Issue on evolution, January 2009: http://www.sciam.com/sciammag/?contents=2009-01

 

The BBC is broadcasting a series of Darwin related television and radio programmes. Several of these are available to watch again on the BBC’s iPlayer service. http://www.bbc.co.uk/darwin/

 

Clare Allan

Subject Librarian

Last January, JISC conducted probably the largest e-book survey ever undertaken, with more than 23,000 responses from students and staff at UK universities.They are now distributing an exit questionnaire to see how things have moved forward in that time and how attitudes and behaviour towards e-books have changed.

To give your views on provision of ebooks, please click here to participate in the survey.

On 22 December the University Court gave the final go ahead for the £13.9 million project to transform the library. By the summer of 2010, the University will have on the Stirling campus a 21st century library to support the learning and research activities of all students and staff. As it is the existing building which is being transformed, there will be some disruption to library and other services while the construction work is underway. Information Services is committed to minimising the disruption to students in this period and maintaining services.

 

During this semester, the construction work is mainly confined to the “backroom” areas such as staff offices and storage areas. One study area and part of another one will be closed, but the number of study spaces and IT facilities will be maintained by an increase in the accommodation in the Electronic Information Area on level 2 of the library and by the opening of a new open access computer lab in Cottrell 2Y corridor. There will be no significant disruption to the normal activities of borrowing or referencing of books in the library. Therefore there should be little disruption to students’ normal use of the library this semester.

 

The builders will be aiming to keep noise levels down while they work and Information Services’ staff will monitor these levels carefully. Outside the hours of 9-5 Mondays to Fridays, it is expected that there will be no noise; Information Services will advertise any expected changes to this well in advance.

 

Those students wishing to use the University’s archives or special collections for projects may experience some disruption as these have generally been relocated because they are normally housed in the areas where the builders are working first. If you are considering using these collections your are recommended to check the up to date details of availability of these services which can be found at:
http://www.is.stir.ac.uk/libraries/collections/spcoll/index.php
The statistics and EC collections have now been moved to store, but most of these are available online; please contact the Information Centre for assistance.

 

A team has been established to oversee the management of the project; this includes the SUSA President and the Director of Information Services, either of whom will be happy to raise concerns and problems expressed by any student when using library services during this time.

 

The major construction work in the library will start in the summer and is due to last for twelve months. During that period special arrangements will be in place for library services. Top priority is being given to ensure the 110,000 books, journals etc which appear on reading lists and which have been issued in the past year are available for students to reference or borrow. Access to PCs and study spaces will be maintained although some may be in different locations to usual to avoid disruption by the builders. Fuller information on the detailed services for next academic year will appear in due course.

 

Information Services has a web site which has background information on the library transformation project and contains up to date news on its progress. Bookmark it now!
http://www.is.stir.ac.uk/newlibrary

 

Mark Toole
Director of Information Services

The Stirling Campus Library loan allocation has been raised to 100 books for academic staff and research postgraduates. The increased allocation, which applies only to “long loan” books is available now, and the books may be borrowed until August 2010.

 

This is part of the planning for the Interim Library Service, which will operate from June 2009 through to August 2010 while the main part of the building is refurbished.

There are two reasons for encouraging additional borrowing:

 

1. It will allow researchers to have access to books in their research areas which don’t meet the usage criteria for selection into the interim collection.
2. Because all loans are subject to recall, it will increase the number of books which will be accessible over the interim period. This might be particularly helpful for dissertation students requiring material not on reading lists.

 

So please make use of this additional allocation. There are two conditions; firstly that recalled books be returned if another user requests them; and secondly, keep the rest of them till August 2010 as we won’t have room on the shelves in the meantime.

 

David Gardiner
Manager Lending & Enquiry Services

The seventh meeting of the WebCT Users’ Group is being held on Wednesday 28th January 2009 at 12.30 in the Iris Murdoch Centre. The format is lunch at 12.30 followed at 13.00 by a presentation by Mark Toole, Director of Information Services. Mark’s presentation will be on Elgg, open-source social networking software that is being used to power a number of social networks within UK HE (and outside). Elgg offers blogs, networking, groups, news feed aggregation and file sharing features. A longer description of Elgg’s features can be found here.

 

Mark came to Stirling from Brighton and Brighton University runs the largest Elgg supported social networking sites in the UK, called Community@Brighton. At Stirling we currently have a test installation running a for the STEER student mentoring project. Further information on Elgg can be found at http://www.elgg.com.

 

Places are limited (and we need to know how many lunches to order!) so please book with Simon (Ex 7247 or email). Also please let Simon know of any special dietary requirements. Video conferencing facilities can be made available for staff at Highland and Western Isles campuses on request.

 

Simon Booth

Manager – Centre for eLearning Development

 

Due to the need for extensive, essential maintenance to the database, the staff and student portal will be unavailable from 17.00 on Friday, 16th January, and for the whole of Saturday, 17th January. The portal will remain at risk on Sunday, 18th January.Access to WebCT, webmail and some other functions will still be available at this time. Appropriate links will be made available to allow you to access these while the portal is down. During the advertised downtime, there may be brief periods when the portal is brought back up for testing. During these periods, the portal should not be considered to be stable and continued access cannot be guaranteed

We regret any inconvenience caused by this but hope that this advance notice will allow you time to plan around it.

 

Kathy McCabe
IS Development Manager